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Lake Placid to Host Next World Cup Tour Stop

16 Dec, 2016

USA Bobled and Skeleton Athletes Ready for the Next Challenge

Coming off of two bronze medal performances in the season-opening Whistler World Cup races, Team USA will move on to the second stop of the 2016-2017 circuit in Lake Placid, N.Y. The second leg of the tour will feature a packed two-day schedule, beginning with two-man bobsled, women's bobsled and men's skeleton on Dec. 16 followed by four-person bobsled and women's skeleton Dec. 17.

Due to snow in the forecast, race times are subject to change, so check the USABS website or follow USABS' social media accounts for updates throughout the week. The Lake Placid events will be streamed live on NBCSports.com at http://www.nbcsports.com/live, and via the NBC Sports app from your phone.

Men's skeleton competitor Matt Antoine (Prairie du Chien, Wisc.) and the women's bobsled team of Jamie Greubel Poser (Newtown, Pa.) and Lauren Gibbs (Los Angeles, Calif.) led Team USA in Whistler, and Team USA will look to increase their podium finishes this weekend.

Greubel Poser will team up with her 2014 Olympic brakeman Aja Evans (Chicago, Ill.) seeking her second medal in the young season in the KOA branded BMW sled. Meanwhile, Gibbs will push for Brittany Reinbolt (Searcy, Ark.), who put together two strong runs en route to a seventh place finish last week. Elana Meyers Taylor (Douglasville, Ga.) returns after crashing in Whistler's first heat despite setting the track's start record with Kehri Jones (Killeen, Texas). Meyers Taylor will be paired with three-time Olympian Lolo Jones (Des Moines, Iowa), who makes her 2016-2017 debut, in the BMW wrapped and made sled.

Antoine, Nathan Crumpton (Park City, Utah) and Kyle Tress (Ewing, N.J.) will compete for Team USA in the men's skeleton race. Crumpton and Tress finished in 14th and 20th, respectively, last week. Home ice, however, will likely be a different story. Tress has never finished outside of the top 10 sliders in World Cup competition in Lake Placid, and while Crumpton has never competed in an international race in Lake Placid, he was second only to Antoine in the 2016-2017 USA Skeleton National Team Trials in October.

On the women's side, Savannah Graybill (Denver, Pa.) holds the track record and earned the bronze medal in the Lake Placid Intercontinental Cup last season. Graybill will once again be filling in for Katie Uhlaender. Meanwhile, Annie O'Shea (Port Jefferson Station, N.Y.) was last week's top American finisher in women's skeleton, finishing in sixth while Graybill took 10th. O'Shea also took gold in the Lake Placid World Cup last season. Rounding out the group is Kendall Wesenberg (Modesto, Calif.), who took 19th last week, but finished ninth in last season's Lake Placid World Cup.

Steven Holcomb's (Park City, Utah) four-person crew of Carlo Valdes (Newport Beach, Calif.), Sam Michener (Gresham, Ore.) and Jimmy Reed (Garmisch, Germany), missed the podium by three-hundredths of a second last week, and will return to home ice looking to move up into the top three. There will be several changes to the four-person teams, as Sam McGuffie (Cypress, Texas) will join Holcomb in the BMW sled, replacing Michener, who will instead be pushing for driver Codie Bascue (Whitehall, N.Y.) alongside Adrian Adams (Reidsville, N.C.) and Frank Del Duca (Bethel, Maine).

Meanwhile, Justin Olsen (San Antoinio, Texas) will make his 2016-2017 four-person World Cup debut after leading Team USA in seventh in last week's two-man competition with Evan Weinstock (Las Vegas, Nev.). Olsen will team with Weinstock, Austin Landis (Nashville, Tenn.) and Luis Moreira (Somerville, Mass.).

Team USA is also set to field a fourth four-person sled, as Meyers Taylor will compete in the four-person race alongside Hakeem Abdul-Saboor (Powhatan, Va.), Alexander Harrison (Edmonds, Wash.) and her husband, Nic Taylor (Colorado Springs, Colo.). The two-time Olympic medalist has previously competed in four-person World Cup events, but this will be her first World Cup four-person race since the 2014-2015 season, when she finished 16th in Calgary, Canada and 13th in Sochi, Russia.

Olsen and Weinstock will pair again in the Lake Placid two-man race, while McGuffie will push for Holcomb, who took gold in last year's Lake Placid World Cup, in the Under Armour wrapped BMW sled. Bascue is set to team with Adams.

After competing in Lake Placid, athletes take their midseason break before competition resumes in Altenberg, Germany in January. For media inquiries, please contact Amanda Bird, USABS Marketing & Communications Director, at amanda.bird@usabs.com, or at (518) 354-2250.

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